The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
Interview with Yuri Pattison - Part Two
December 2020 saw the opening of ‘the engine’, Yuri Pattison’s new exhibition in Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery. This was six months later than originally planned due to the closure of cultural institutions in Ireland during the pandemic. Pattison's ‘the engine' features a new body of work highlighting the vast systems that create and shape the realities of modern existence. The elongated timeframe and continuing impact of the pandemic has resulted in two distinct conversations, which will be published as two distinct texts. Below is a transcript from the second of these phone interviews from 23 December 2020. Interview by Aidan Kelly Murphy
The Modern Institute, 14-20 Osborne Street, Glasgow G1 5QN
Jesse Wine: Carve a Hole in the Rain for Yer
After a fifteen-year commitment to ceramic sculpture, the New-York based British artist, Jesse Wine, has returned to an overarching concern with motion, composition and stasis, where the conviction found in his earlier works is overturned to make space for reflection. Segregated by bright curtains, spread around the Modern Institute, ‘Carve a Hole in The Rain for Yer’ invites a pause stirred by isolation and confinement. With this note of incompletion and self-questioning comes a distancing from the sculptural subject and a closer contemplation on the process of sculpture. Review by Elaine YJ Zheng
HS Projects, 5 Howick Place, Westminster, London SW1P 1BH
Permindar Kaur: Home
Permindar Kaur’s exhibitions often create feelings of anxiety. Cuddly toys and nursery room furniture would be given abject twists, kid’s dolls and clothes sporting metal claws or daggers and razor wire cribs would speak to the most Freudian nightmares of threat in the domestic family space. The impact of Kaur’s installations is heightened by having the secluded scenes of English family life played out in an institutional gallery setting, with the subsequent unsettling collision of public and private arenas. Review by Piers Masterson
Makina Books, London
Rebecca Tamás: Strangers: Essays on the Human and Nonhuman
Last summer, ‘Strangers: Essays on the Human and Nonhuman’ by the poet Rebecca Tamás had a swarm of anticipation around it. Her poetry collection ‘WITCH’ (2019) and her co- editorial role in ‘Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry’ (2018) had already established the York St John University lecturer as a critically acclaimed writer, crafting a world of linguistic ritual and transformation around her. With these successes behind her, people were buzzing to read Tamás’ five new short prose essays. Through literary strangeness and its many mystic references, the book presents alternative modes of thinking—ways for us to feel reconnected with each other and the plains, wildflowers, seas and forests around us. While this book does, to some extent, hold a place in my heart specifically connected to the hotly political and momentous summer of 2020, it also marks a new standard for arts, literature and contemporary thought, which promotes a more inclusive future. Review by Nina Hanz
Joya AiR, Parque Natural Sierra María-Los Vélez, Andalucia, Spain
Simon Linington: Bajo la Sierra Larga
Growing up on the Isle of Wight, Simon Linington was fascinated by the different coloured sands that made up the cliffs near his childhood home at Alum Bay. Here, new colourful strata would sometimes be dramatically revealed when parts of the cliff-face crumbled due to erosion. As a child, he would fill small glass bottles with layers of the sand, producing the typical tourist souvenirs that are still sold in the area today. These early experiences led Linington to an understanding of material and place as inseparably linked. Review by Anna Souter
Bobinska Brownlee New River, Canonbury Street, London, N1 2US
Interview with Rae Hicks
‘Anomaly’ expands and builds on Hicks’ previous preoccupation with the everyday, which he suggests has taken on a different tone since lockdown. His paintings (made in lockdown one) and sculptures (made in lockdown two), feature the same symbols over and over: sun, sky, pylons and city. But the works feel as if they are reiterating a new kind of feeling. There is a suggestion that these idealised structures and symbols around us are in fact what leads us to being susceptible to conspiracy theories; the tight order of our surroundings are settings ripe for myth and ignorance. Interview by Alexander Harding
Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AH
Interview with Eve Stainton
Eve Stainton’s dance performances transport audiences to brilliantly enigmatic, sensorial worlds. Anyone lucky enough to have caught ‘Rubby Sucky Forge’ at The Place, London in Autumn 2020 will have experienced a much needed detour from reality—three dancers melting, sparring and succumbing to each other in a futuristic stage ecology of metal and slippery projected visuals.Eve’s upcoming performance ‘Dykegeist’ at the ICA is sure to be just as estranging and endearing. Interview with Louisa Doyle
Hauser & Wirth Publishing
Luchita Hurtado
Hurtado’s conversations with Obrist stay true to her character and reveal many of her most admirable traits to the reader. We learn that she was humble and hilarious: at the admirable age of 97, she kept the menu of the Serpentine opening night dinner as a keepsake. She explained to Obrist, “you have to understand, this is one of the happiest days of my life. This will help me remember this wonderful evening once I’m old.” Review by Maximiliane Leuschner
Bbeyond, online
Recorded Action Web (R-A-W)
Bbeyond is dedicated to performance art in all its variety. Established in 2001, the Belfast organisation chooses to complement its regional support of Northern Irish artists with a commitment to fostering dialogue between international communities. Its newest exhibition is ‘Recorded Action Web’ or ‘R-A-W’, which celebrates the organisation’s 20th anniversary. Curated by Sandra Breathnach Corrigan, this online series of performance works continues the organisation’s tradition of international collegiality, featuring artists from a wide variety of countries, including the Ukraine, Spain, Belgium, Germany, and, of course, Ireland. Review by Tom Lordan
Hauser & Wirth, London
Charles Gaines: Multiples of Nature, Trees and Faces
Charles Gaines is a Los Angeles based artist and lecturer who applies systematic and rule-based methods to his unique artistic practice. Gaines’ first solo exhibition in the United Kingdom is currently on view at Hauser & Wirth in London. Due to the ongoing global crisis, Gaines’ show is limited to online viewing. However, it should not be overlooked, as it confronts ideas of race and identity, and raises questions surrounding representation. Across Hauser & Wirth’s galleries on Savile Row are continuations of two ongoing series: ’Numbers & Faces: MultiRacial/Ethnic Combination Series 1’ (1978-) and ‘Numbers & Trees: London Series 1’ (1986-). Gaines’ artistic approach sees systematic colouring combined with overlapping images within a sequenced grid. Review by Sheena Carrington
LUX Scotland, online
Artist Moving Image Festival 2021: GIVE BIRTH TO ME TOMORROW
Established in 2012, LUX Scotland and Tramway's Artist Moving Image Festival has a reputation for engendering exciting and challenging new discourses surrounding artists' film and moving image. Previous iterations have been curated by artists such as Ima-Abasi Okon, Emmie McLuskey, Mark Briggs and Naomi Pearce, and the 2021 festival is no different, led by artists Adam Benmakhlouf and Tako Taal, who share a commitment to countering the structures of colonialism and white supremacy through their work. Typically taking place over a weekend, this iteration of the festival will unfold, instead, over the course of a year, with a welcome and considered slowness. Review by Amy Jones
The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
Interview with Yuri Pattison – Part One
Spring 2020 was due to see the opening of ‘the engine’, Yuri Pattison’s new exhibition in Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery and his first solo show in a major institution in Ireland. However, lockdown saw the exhibition delayed and Pattison presented a cross-section of the proposed work via the online screening, ‘sunset provision’ - a work that sees the artist rendered a seascape in real-time via a game engine. The elongated timeframe and continuing impact of the global pandemic has resulted in two distinct conversations, which will be published as two distinct texts. Interviews by Aidan Kelly Murphy
Galerie Charraudeau, 3/4 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France
Interview with Pepo Moreno
Pepo Moreno is a multidisciplinary artist bringing the intimacy of his bedroom studio to the walls of a Parisian gallery. I chatted to Moreno about his creative process, the importance of queer art in the 21st century, and how 70s porn magazines and Catalonian folklore helped him to tame his ‘demons’ - the title of his new show at Galerie Charraudeau. Interview by Noémi Martini
